|
NEW USAID ADMINISTRATOR COULD BE GOOD FOR IMPACT EVALUATION
 What many people don’t know about Raj Shah, who was recently appointed as the long-awaited Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is that he was an early supporter and participant of CGD’s Evaluation Gap Working Group. In 2006, the Evaluation Gap Working Group issued its report, raising concerns about the limited number of good quality impact evaluations that are available to guide policy at agencies like USAID. So even though the new Administrator has a large agenda before him, improving evaluation at USAID could be near the top of the list. The U.S. Congress is also weighing on this issue, giving evaluation efforts a prominent role in a draft foreign aid bill that was approved in the Senate Finance Committee (For trivia-lovers: Raj Shah is cited in the acknowledgements of Millions Saved: Proven Successes in Global Health for spurring that publication by asking, “So, what works?” He also supported IFPRI’s recent book, Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Global Agriculture, from his position leading the agriculture program at the Gates Foundation.)
3IE ANNOUNCES NEW ROUND OF IMPACT EVALUATION GRANTS
 3ie (the International initiative for Impact Evaluation) announced that it has awarded 21 grants for new impact evaluations, totaling about $10 million. Among other topics, the studies will analyze approaches to transitional justice in Sierra Leone, programs that pay to reduce deforestation in Uganda and Mexico, and efforts to reduce HIV infection in Malawi through counseling and subsidies for male circumcision. The organization’s second round of awards demonstrates how far impact evaluation work has come in the past few years. 3ie will be soliciting a new round of proposals for May 2010.
EXPERIMENTERS AS SEEKERS
A recent working paper by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, “The Experimental Approach to Development Economics,” addresses critiques of experimental methods by describing how these studies have evolved in recent years to engage policymakers and researchers in a dynamic learning process. The paper usefully separates out critiques that are specific to random assignment studies from those that are shared by all other methods of evaluation.
|
ADDItional resources
Andrew Oxman and co-authors have published “A framework for mandatory impact evaluation to ensure well informed public policy decisions” (The Lancet, 375(9712):427 – 431).
A new book from the World Bank by Khandker, Koolwal, and Samad - Handbook on Impact Evaluation: Quantitative Methods and Practice
3ie has an expanding and searchable database of impact evaluations conducted in low- and middle-income countries.
A Joint Colloquium of the Cochrane & Campbell Collaborations, entitled “Bringing Evidence-Based Decision-Making to New Heights” will take place 18-22 October 2010 in Colorado, USA. Abstract Submission closes on March 29.
"Millions Fed: Proven Successes in Agricultural Development" , produced by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), documents the impact of 20 large-scale initiatives on increasing yields and production, as well as in expanding markets, protecting the environment, and improving nutrition. Its case study approach followed the model of Millions Saved: Proven Successes in Global Health.
CARE International has set up an Evaluation Electronic Library where you can find their external evaluation reports.
|
